How do I do a not equal in Django queryset filtering?

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In Django model QuerySets, I see that there is a __gt and __lt for comparative values, but is there a __ne or != (not equals)? I want to filter out using a not equals. For example, for

Model:
    bool a;
    int x;

I want to do

results = Model.objects.exclude(a=True, x!=5)

The != is not correct syntax. I also tried __ne.

I ended up using:

results = Model.objects.exclude(a=True, x__lt=5).exclude(a=True, x__gt=5)
17 Answers

You can use Q objects for this. They can be negated with the ~ operator and combined much like normal Python expressions:

from myapp.models import Entry
from django.db.models import Q

Entry.objects.filter(~Q(id=3))

will return all entries except the one(s) with 3 as their ID:

[<Entry: Entry object>, <Entry: Entry object>, <Entry: Entry object>, ...]

the field=value syntax in queries is a shorthand for field__exact=value. That is to say that Django puts query operators on query fields in the identifiers. Django supports the following operators:

exact
iexact
contains
icontains
in
gt
gte
lt
lte
startswith
istartswith
endswith
iendswith
range

date
year
iso_year
month
day
week
week_day
iso_week_day
quarter
time
hour
minute
second

isnull
regex
iregex

I'm sure by combining these with the Q objects as Dave Vogt suggests and using filter() or exclude() as Jason Baker suggests you'll get exactly what you need for just about any possible query.

While you can filter Models with =, __gt, __gte, __lt, __lte, you cannot use ne or !=. However, you can achieve better filtering using the Q object.

You can avoid chaining QuerySet.filter() and QuerySet.exclude(), and use this:

from django.db.models import Q
object_list = QuerySet.filter(~Q(field='not wanted'), field='wanted')

Using exclude and filter

results = Model.objects.filter(x=5).exclude(a=true)

Django-model-values (disclosure: author) provides an implementation of the NotEqual lookup, as in this answer. It also provides syntactic support for it:

from model_values import F
Model.objects.exclude(F.x != 5, a=True)

This will give your desired result.

from django.db.models import Q
results = Model.objects.exclude(Q(a=True) & ~Q(x=5))

for not equal you can use ~ on an equal query. obviously, Q can be used to reach the equal query.

The last bit of code will exclude all objects where x!=5 and a is True. Try this:

results = Model.objects.filter(a=False, x=5)

Remember, the = sign in the above line is assigning False to the parameter a and the number 5 to the parameter x. It's not checking for equality. Thus, there isn't really any way to use the != symbol in a query call.

This should work

results = Model.objects.filter(x=5).exclude(a=True)

Watch out for lots of incorrect answers to this question!

Gerard's logic is correct, though it will return a list rather than a queryset (which might not matter).

If you need a queryset, use Q:

from django.db.models import Q
results = Model.objects.filter(Q(a=false) | Q(x=5))

If we need to exclude/negate based on the sub queryset we can use,

Conditional filter:

When a conditional expression returns a boolean value, it is possible to use it directly in filters. Here non_unique_account_type returns a boolean value. But, still, we can use it in the filter.

>>> non_unique_account_type = Client.objects.filter(
...     account_type=OuterRef('account_type'),
... ).exclude(pk=OuterRef('pk')).values('pk')
>>> Client.objects.filter(~Exists(non_unique_account_type))

In the SQL terms, it evaluates to:

SELECT * FROM client c0
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
  SELECT c1.id
  FROM client c1
  WHERE c1.account_type = c0.account_type AND NOT c1.id = c0.id
)
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